Design and Culture

The Journal of the Design Studies Forum

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Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative,

Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice

Matt Malpass

To cite this article: Matt Malpass (2013) Between Wit and Reason: Defining Associative,
Speculative, and Critical Design in Practice, Design and Culture, 5:3, 333-356, DOI:
10.2752/175470813X13705953612200

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DESIGN AND CULTURE VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3
PP 333–356
Dr Matt Malpass is a Lecturer
on MA Industrial Design and
a Research Fellow in Critical
Design within the Socially
Responsive Design and
Innovation Hub at Central
Saint Martin’s College of Arts
and Design, University of the
Arts London. His research
interests focus on critical and
socially responsive forms
of design and design-led
social innovation. He is a
core member of staff within
the Design Against Crime
Research Centre at the
University of the Arts London.
m.malpass@csm.arts.ac.uk
REPRINTS AVAILABLE PHOTOCOPYING © BLOOMSBURY
DIRECTLY FROM THE PERMITTED BY PUBLISHING PLC 2013
PUBLISHERS LICENSE ONLY PRINTED IN THE UK
Between Wit and
Reason: Defining
Associative,
Speculative, and
Critical Design in
Design and Culture DOI: 10.2752/175470813X13705953612200
Practice
Matt Malpass
Abstract A growing number of
designers employ design as a form of
critique and speculation within disciplinary,
scientific and societal frames. They
share a critical perspective on the role of
product design in society, recognizing the
ability to construct publics on and around
objects to mobilize debate. In doing this,
critical designers challenge established
discourse, institution, episteme, and
present alternative roles for product design
to those driven by technological and fiscal
concerns. This interpretation of design
counters hegemonic, optimistic notions of
333
the field, aiming instead to legitimize and
 Matt Malpass

problematize alternate forms of design work. The

article addresses design’s critical practices with the
aim of developing theoretical apparatus with which
to further engage the design studies community in
the discourse.
The article draws on a set of in-depth
conversational interviews with expert critical
designers. Each has played a part in the
development and theorization of the practice. The
interviews were analyzed to identify salience in
the participants’ perspectives on critical design.
From this analysis, satire, rationality, and narrative
are identified as salient concepts in the operation
of critical practices in design. They engage user
audiences and establish the critical move through
design. They also help differentiate between three
types of critical practice. These types are defined in
the article as associative, speculative, and critical
design. They are structured into a taxonomic space
by attending to the satiric devices used in each.
This taxonomy provides theoretical apparatus to
analyze and discuss critical practices in design.

Keywords: critical practice, associative design, speculative

design, critical design, satire, taxonomy

Why Study Critical Practice?

The design profession needs to mature and find ways of

operating outside the tight constraints of servicing industry.
At its worst product design simply reinforces global capitalist
values. Design needs to see this for what it is, just one possibility,
and to develop alternative roles for itself. It needs to establish
an intellectual stance of its own, or the design profession is
destined to lose all intellectual credibility and viewed simply as
an agent of capitalism. (Dunne and Raby 2001: 59)

Although Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby’s prescription for design

was written more than ten years ago, it continues to have resonance.
Indeed, with the aid of hindsight, it can be argued that now, more
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than ever, critical practices in design need to establish an intellectual

stance of their own or else they are destined to lose their intel-
lectual credibility. More and more, the danger is that critical practice
becomes overly self-reflexive and introverted, sustained, practiced,
and exchanged in a closed community. By operating in this way,
its usefulness as part of a larger disciplinary project is undermined.
334

There are already utterances of critical practice being little more than
 Between Wit and Reason

“design for design’s sake,” “design for designers,” or perhaps more

appropriately, “design for critical designers.”1
This article contributes to the field of inquiry into design and its
critical practices. In design research, where ideological bases rule
and theoretical grounding is essential as a reference point, critical
practice has not been viewed as a serious form of design. It is
sustained in a somewhat closed discourse limited to design maga-
zines, niche publications and gallery showcases. Its theorization and
documentation is left to design journalists, bloggers, and curators
whose primary agenda is arguably to sell magazines, accumulate
hits, or to get the viewing public through gallery doors. Thus, there
is a need for the constructive input of a broader community to
legitimize the practice as the vital form of product design that it is,
in disciplinary and professional contexts. Increasingly, this legitimiza-
tion must come about through critique and problematization of the
practice itself. At the time of writing, the design studies focus on
critical practice is limited compared to that which focuses on other
fields of ideation and making. This is evident in the lack of exogenous
research that specifically addresses critical practice, notable espe-
cially when compared to the amount of scholarly writing that focuses
on other marginalized practices.
Moreover, fields such as participatory design, socially responsive
design, and codesign have emerged in parallel to critical practice.
These modes reflect upon the relationship between design and the
communities that are being designed for, and, or with. They operate
beyond conditions set by fiscal gain or technological development.
They are established as intellectual and politically motivated prac-
tices, informing policy and used to address complex societal con-
cerns. In their deviation from focusing on the production of objects,
they reflect instead a move towards the designer acting as facilitator
of large groups of people; they imply a critique of mainstream design,
or at least challenge common perceptions of the designers’ role.
However, unlike critical practice today, they are assumed to be
progressive within disciplinary discourse. They have been absorbed
into the disciplinary orthodoxy through the shared efforts of theorists,
commentators and practitioners.2
The problem with analysis of critical design is the tendency to limit
and oversimplify the movement. This oversimplification is a symptom
of dissemination in gallery and magazine contexts where work is
presented with short, digestible captions and in some cases mis-
represented and lacking scrutiny.3 A lack of in-depth analysis might
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cause it to disappear, particularly in light of the growing prominence

and interest in other design practices that strive to extend the social
agency and affect change through product design approaches in
response to complex social problems. Thus, the research presented
here strives to call on a design studies community to engage with criti-
cal practice in the same way that these once marginalized practices
335

have been. It does this by providing contextual tools and ­theoretical

 Matt Malpass

apparatus that acts as a point of access into the discussion of critical

practice and its reflection in a variety of design projects.
In proving its continuing importance, it is essential to examine
and understand critical practice not in terms of the arts, but rather
in relation to traditional ideas of satire, narrative, and rationality.
This conceptualization challenges the idea that one form of critical
practice in design – that is the critique commonly associated with the
work of Dunne and Raby at the Royal College of Art in London – is
completely representative of contemporary conditions in the entire
field. Instead, understanding how critical practice operates changes
how we perceive and evaluate the field. If this discussion focuses on
the form and operation of critical practice, it provides a framework
by which to analyze, differentiate, organize, and discuss the char-
acteristics of work beyond the colloquial understanding of the field.
Above all, it allows us to study the field’s nuances and work toward
a taxonomy of critical practice in design.

Toward a Taxonomy of Critical Practice in Design

I am never sure whether to use the term critical design to

define my own work these days. The term is so associated
with the Design Interactions course at the RCA, and its
subversive, often dystopian, visions of technological futures. I
see as many parallels with the work of Bill Gaver’s Interaction
Research Studio at Goldsmiths – another group whose work is
associated with critical design by observers, but not thought of
as such by its practitioners. We haven’t managed to come up
with as compelling an alternative definition yet though. (Pullin
2010: 324)

Critical design is often understood in relation to the practice of Dunne

and Raby and activity carried out within the Design Interactions
department at the Royal College of Art in London.4 However, as
Graham Pullin explains, this common association is problematic.
Moreover, designers who practice in similar ways challenge its nar-
row definition. This investigation aims to explore important nuances
in the field, noting differences between forms of critical practice while
also problematizing the colloquial understanding of “critical design.”
A survey of the field and interviews with practitioners provides evi-
dence for three distinct types of critical practice today. All may be
fitted under the overarching rubric “critical practice” of design, but
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these may further be differentiated and presented as associative

design, speculative design, and critical design (Malpass 2012b).
The first, associative design, emerged from designer-maker tradi-
tions and draws on mechanisms of subversion and experimentation
in conceptual art. Such practice has been discussed at length by
Mazé and Redström (2007), Robach (2005), and Rossi (2013).
336

Alternately, speculative design specifically focuses on science

 Between Wit and Reason

and technology, establishing and projecting scenarios of use; it

makes visible what is emerging, reflecting the social anthropolo-
gist Paul Rabinow’s terms by both slowing down the present and
speeding us up to that present’s future (Hunt 2011: 44). It has a
relationship to science and technology studies (STS) discourses
(Kerridge 2009; Michael 2012; Ward and Wilkie 2009; Wilkie 2010).
Critical design, however, emerged from developments in the field
of human–computer interaction and later interaction design. In that
context, it challenged conventional approaches in designing human–­
object interaction (Agre 1997; Gaver and Dunne 1997; Seago and
Dunne 1999; Crampton Smith 1994; Redström 2008; Hällnas and
Redström 2002). Each of these practices challenges the essentialist
view that product design needs to be grounded in need, efficient use
and technical function.

Associative Design
Primarily focusing on disciplinary content, associative design sub-
verts expectations of the ordinary and the everyday. With an embed-
ded narrative, objects of associative design act as a critical medium,
playfully reflecting on cultural meaning while visualizing issues perti-
nent to design practice today. It is a laconic form of design practice,
leaning toward artistic speculation rather than design for production.
The aim of this approach presents means for both designers and
users to rethink dominant traditions and values in designed objects
and their environment.
Associative design is based on conventional understandings of
objects; these rely on a user’s familiarity with form, typology, and
design language. It works through the subversion of objects or their
context and conventions of use. Martino Gamper’s associative de-
sign, for example, is characterized by spontaneity and the collapse
of the processes of design and making. In 100 Chairs in 100 Days,
Gamper uses burlesque afforded through methods of “cut-up,”
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Figure 1
Associative design. Martino Gamper, 100 Chairs in
337

100 Days, 2007.

 Matt Malpass

“­ hybridity,” and “bricolage” to recombine elements of existing chairs

into a series of unique seats. Through the appropriation of found
objects, the project can be read as a critique on obsolescence and
the role that the design profession plays in driving this culture. In
associative design, a critical move is established and the user is
prompted to question the object because of these subversions.
It challenges embedded assumptions of products, making use of
conventional disciplinary frames to assert and subvert norms.
Associative design works through what Gaver, Beaver, and
Benford (2003) outline as ambiguity of context or what Ball and
Naylor describe as “correspondence and context”:

Paradoxically, paradox and ambiguity used in the right context

can work to reveal and illuminate, and to reconcile opposites in
a holistic way. They give shape to overlapping and contradic-
tory issues which pragmatic and pedestrian delivery often fails
to achieve. For an idea to really speak as an object, that is, a
thing in three dimensions, it must have more than one dimen-
sion. (2006: 56)

The critical narrative is embedded into the object form – typically

conveyed through familiar archetypes. Like Gamper’s work, the
practice is dominated by furniture design. The chairs, tables, and
lighting that characterize associative design make its objects “more
rational” than those in speculative and critical design. In associative
design, designers employ a straightforward attitude to materials,
an inventive approach to fabrication processes and methods, and
typically a resistance to product styling. Methods of cut-up, context
transfer and hybridity (Scholz in Brandes, Stich, and Wender 2009:
41) are used to intervene in concepts and behaviors engaged in use.
These selective contradictions add rich conceptual meaning to the
objects. Latent humor and dry wit characterize the objects.

Speculative Design
Situated between emerging scientific discourse and material culture,
speculative design operates in an ambivalent space; it typically fo-
cuses on the domestication of up-and-coming ideas in the sciences
and applied technology. It is concerned with the projection of socio-
technical trends, developing scenarios of product roles in new use
contexts. It is linked to futures, scenario building and technoscientific
research. It is characterized by its inquiry into advancing science and
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technology. It aims to broaden the contexts and applications of work

carried out in laboratories and show them in everyday contexts.
Speculative design often takes what Feenberg (1999) describes
as a substantive view of technology. It therefore questions the role
and potential of new science and technology, often with a dystopic
subtext. The designs pose challenging statements that attempt
338

to explore ethical and societal implications of applied science. It

 Between Wit and Reason

Figure 2
Speculative design. James Auger, Smell +: Dating and Genetic Compatibility
Smell Blind Date, 2009. Design probes for Philips.

considers biotechnology, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and

Design and Culture

robotics as falling within product design’s remit. Typically, the design-

ers work with scientific practices, materials, concepts, and scientists
themselves. Scientific instruments or materials like the petri dish,
tissue cultures, MRIs and thermal imaging become part of the work.
The results generated in scientific practice are taken up in the design
work, and in some examples, the process of doing science itself
339

figures as the design process.

 Matt Malpass

The aim is to make scientific theories and the cultural implications of

science perceptible in different ways. James Auger’s Smell +: Dating
and Genetic Compatibility Smell Blind Date (2009), for instance,
explores the human experiential potential of the sense of smell,
applying contemporary scientific research in a range of domestic
and social contexts. Auger speculates with objects and probes used
diagnostic tools to measure potential partners’ genetic compatibility.
The project challenges sociocultural embargoes that exist and inhibit
the realization of this technology in a “real world” context. Examples
of this include Revital Cohen’s Life Support: Dialysis Sheep, in which
she proposes the use of genetically engineered sheep to act as living
dialysis machines. James King’s Dressing the Meat of Tomorrow ex-
plores the design of synthetically grown meat and the form that this
petri-dish-cultured meat might take and our willingness to consume
this type of food, and Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Scott’s Bio Jewelry
looks at the potential aesthetic and ornamental applications of using
bone cell cultures to grow and shape jewelry produced from living
bone tissue taken from a lover. In each case the designers question
the application of the science in new contexts. The discourse built on
and around these designs brings into the light the barriers that might
exist to the application of these scientific methods and techniques; is
it necessary or ethical to culture bone tissue for aesthetic purposes?
How does our relationship to life support technology change when
the technology is living? Are we comfortable with synthetically engi-
neered meat? These propositions require us to question our values
and how our values might need to change in order for the science
and technology to be realized in such a way.
The practice of Auger and others questions scientific and social
theories by reflecting on the implications of design decisions made
today and how they may proceed into the future. Speculative design
encourages the user to reconsider how the present is “futuring”
and how we might have the chance to reconfigure the future. It
advocates a democratic and open discussion into how science and
technology is developed and directed. It serves as an alternative to
existing strategies by channeling research findings through material
objects. As a result, speculative designs express knowledge through
form and interaction with the work. Rather than being represented
as situated consumer products intended for mass production, these
forms live in exhibition and public engagement contexts.
Speculative design works through what Gaver, Beaver, and
Benford (2003) describe as ambiguity of information. Because it
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is concerned with new theoretical and applied technologies, its

propositions are often unfamiliar. Work produced as speculative
design is dependent on the construction of an external narrative
and scenarios depicting the design’s use. This is typified through
methods of technocratic visualization and counterfactual histories
(Auger 2013) where the objects and science that they address are
340

often depicted through film, image and other documentary material;

 Between Wit and Reason

they contextualize emerging technology by imagining it adopted

into everyday use. Objects are typically positioned in quotidian do-
mestic contexts that exaggerate the impact of applied science and
encourage reflection on the information inherent in the work. Objects
therefore function as a gesture or prop but themselves are often
subsumed within larger narratives or contexts, constituting but one
part of a larger design device.5

Critical Design
If speculative design focuses on science and the potential future
applications of applied technology, then critical design focuses on
present social, cultural, and ethical implications of design objects
and practice. It is grounded in critical social theory. Its designers
scan the cultural horizon today, offering a critique of what already
exists. At its core are para-functionality and the aesthetics of use
(Dunne 1998; Hällnas and Redström 2002). Through mechanisms
of defamiliarization and estrangement, designers such as Dunne
and Raby extend the critical distance between the object and the
user; in so doing, they make striking comment on current socio-
technical, economic, political, cultural, and psychological concerns.
Their 2004 work Is This Your Future?, for example, is a critical design
experiment commissioned by the Science Museum, London. Dunne
and Raby present a collection of hypothetical products to explore
the ethical, cultural and social impact of different energy futures.
Photographic scenarios were used to communicate a set of values
driven by social as well as technological changes. The scenarios
included biofuel created from human waste. The critical approach is
characterized by the articulation of the designer’s viewpoint – in this
case the implication that human beings can or might be transformed
from fuel consumers to energy providers. Like much critical design,
the project is more diverse and often much more polemic in its tone
than speculative and associative design. In projects such as Is This
Your Future?, critical design shares traits with design activism and
culture jamming.
In critical design, it is vital for the user to experience a dilemma
and to carry something of a burden of interpretation. The inten-
tion is to engage audiences’ imagination and intellect in order for
the designer to convey the message. Like Is This Your Future?,
examples of critical design often depict fictive scenarios. Objects are
proposed, even if they cannot exist in normal models of consump-
tion because of social or cultural embargoes. This Dunne and Raby
Design and Culture

piece, for instance, works through understatement and obscenity as

it suggests using child labor to produce energy. Although they often
employ familiar shapes, colors, and forms, such designs suspend
the user uncomfortably between reality and fiction. They seem real
but there is something not quite right; barriers are introduced or
exaggerated in a way that is defamiliarizing. These mechanisms
341

prompt the question of what we would need to change in our reality

 Matt Malpass

Figure 3
Critical design. Dunne and Raby, Is This Your Future?, 2004. Energy Gallery,
Science Museum, London, 2004. Photographer: Jason Evans.

to enable these products to exist in a normal model of consumption.

At what point might our insatiable need for biofuel cause us to collect
Design and Culture

the bodily waste of children for energy? It is in this tension between

reality and what is prohibited that debate is encouraged. The aim is
to expose assumptions, provoking action and stirring debate.
Critical design works through what Gaver, Beaver, and Benford
(2003) outline as relational ambiguity. The critical move is developed
through a synthesis of object and media that record it and provide a
342

sequence of events that prod us to interpret its significance. As with

 Between Wit and Reason

speculative design, objects must be situated in a context; moreover,

such contextualization is established through media that can convey
a narrative, namely photography and film and pseudo-documentary.6

Design Practice as Satire

Satire has long been used as a device to offer critique, but it also
provides a provocative lens by which to examine design’s forms
of critical practice. Literary satire, with its established theoretical
foundation, diminishes a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking
attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation towards it.
In design’s various critical practices, satire functions as constructive
social criticism. In achieving this, the designers use wit as an instru-
ment to afford critical reflection and engage a user audience through
humor. In associative design, the focus of critique typically relates
to disciplinary concerns. Speculative design looks beyond the field,
exploring the domestication and appropriation of emerging science
and technology in quotidian contexts. Critical design is concerned
with reassessing the profession’s role in society. In this way, critical
design highlights the vices, abuses and shortcomings found in or-
thodox product design, while challenging “concerning” sociocultural
conditions. At its most strident, this is done with the intent of sham-
ing individuals, the discipline, or even society itself.

Horatian and Juvenalian Satire

In classical terms, two major forms of satire are employed in critical
design practice: Juvenalian and Horatian. Juvenalian satire charac-
terized by the work of the Roman satirist Juvenal is often political,
savage and pointed; it works through narrative techniques of antith-
esis, obscenity and violence.7 Horatian satire characterized by the
work of the Roman satirist Horace is less savage as it identifies folly
and works through paradoxical techniques of burlesque, colloquial-
ism, exaggeration and anticlimax.8
Associative design works through Horatian satire. In the Horatian
approach, the designer takes either an existing work that was cre-
ated with a serious purpose, or an object with reputable character-
istics, and then makes the work look ridiculous by infusing it with
incongruous ideas. This is achieved by presenting it in inappropriate
forms, remaking it by using inappropriate materials, or by subverting
the context in which it might be used. The work parodies design
to construct criticism. Parody is a composition that imitates the
serious manner and characteristic features of a particular work, or
Design and Culture

the distinctive style of its maker. It then applies the imitation to a lowly
or comically inappropriate subject. It is a variety of burlesque, a form
of satire characterized by ridiculous exaggeration. A serious subject
may be treated frivolously or a frivolous subject seriously. Ralph Ball
and Maxine Naylor’s 24-Star Generic Office Chair (2003) satirizes the
common desk chair. Although ubiquitous today, similar chair designs
343

were initially criticized for only having three legs on their base. Shortly
 Matt Malpass

Figure 4
Ralph Ball and Maxine Naylor,
24-Star Generic Office Chair, 2003.

after its production, the design was modified to make it more stable.
Later secretarial chairs were required to have five legs on their base.
This in turn made many office chairs with a three- and four-star base
obsolete. Ball and Naylor preserve these criticisms in a chair form,
adding four five-legged bases to the original four. Thus in the design
they articulate the chairs’ history while making criticism of a culture
of obsolescence by literally elevating the status of the obsolete
office chairs. This is an extreme example of form following function.
In the Horatian approach, they employ mechanisms of reductio ad
absurdum. The essential quality of burlesque is the discrepancy
between subject matter and style. That is, a style ordinarily dignified
may be used for nonsensical matter, or a style very nonsensical may
be used to ridicule a weighty subject.

Speculative and Critical Design Work through

Juvenalian Satire
By working through narrative forms of allegory, exaggeration, an-
tithesis, obscenity, and violence, Juvenalian satire is “darker” than
Horatian satire. In this respect, the Juvenalian designer approaches
his or her work by attacking perceived errors in logic or thinking;
such satire tries to evoke contempt, shock, and righteous indigna-
Design and Culture

tion in the mind of the user.

Accordingly, speculative design works through mechanisms of
exaggeration, distortion, and allegory. In this use of satire, however,
recognition must precede correction. Recognition on the users’ part
is afforded through the designer’s understanding of allegory; the lat-
ter constructs narratives of use around technological products and
344

the application of new science. This satire is achieved by changing

 Between Wit and Reason

the perspective on a condition or situation. By separating something

from its ordinary context, speculative design emphasizes some
aspects of the problem and plays down others through methods
of exaggeration or understatement. Dunne and Raby’s 2010 work,
Between Reality and the Impossible: Foragers, works through
techniques of distortion. By taking scientific activity out of the lab
and into the fields, it anticipates a world dominated by overpopula-
tion. Their allegorical account states that according to the United
Nations, we need to produce 70 percent more food in the next
forty years. However, we continue to overpopulate the planet, using
up resources and ignoring warning signs. Proposing a solution,
they look at evolutionary processes and molecular technologies,
imagining how we can take control of this situation. The proposition
and humble practices associated with foraging offer an understated
solution to the problem and an exaggerated application of cur-
rent scientific developments. Combining the ideas taking place in
genetics and synthetic biology with bottom-up guerrilla tactics, they
suggest genetically engineering digestive tracts and other devices

Design and Culture

Figure 5
Dunne and Raby, designs for an overpopulated planet. Between Reality and the Impossible: Foragers, 2010.
Commissioned by Constance Rubini for the 2010 St Etienne Design Biennale, Between Reality and the
345

Impossible. Photographer: Jason Evans.

 Matt Malpass

that might allow humans to find nutrition from sources previously

deemed inedible. Humans might even develop eating devices that
copy the digestion of other mammals, birds, fish, and insects. As in
other forms of speculative design, the satiric message is more likely
to be remembered in the allegoric narrative because the vehicle of
the story makes use of physical realities in quotidian systems of use.
Finally, critical design works in a somewhat different manner,
relying on antithesis, counter-proposition and allegory. The narratives
developed here depict scenarios as a means to visualizing alterna-
tives. Critical designers evoke dark humor, while using polemic nar-
ratives employing forms of obscenity and violence. These narratives
establish a counterfactual position on the status quo. They are used
to present alternatives in such a way that that alternative positions
or view of the world can be articulated and understood in material
terms, for example challenging dominant technological ideologies
as Dunne does in Hertzian Tales (1998), or projecting an alternative
economic reality as in Jon Arden and Benedict Singleton’s ARK-INC
(2009). In this way, Adam Thorpe and Joe Hunter, of the fashion
design partnership Vexed Generation, commented on a culture of
surveillance through design practice. Thorpe and Hunter conceived
the Vexed parka to meet both the practical needs and political
concerns of the urban generation in 1990s London. Introduced in
1995, the designers considered personal safety and addressed civil
liberties, street protest, and CCTV surveillance through the design.
Design and Culture

Figure 6
Adam Thorpe and Joe Hunter, Vexed Generation.
346

Vexed parka, 1995.

 Between Wit and Reason

Violence and understatement are used in their satiric response in the

form of a parka that obscures identity and protects vulnerable parts
of the body against heavy-handed police strategies to detain protes-
tors. The design is informed by a detailed study of these strategies
and responsive to them in the features designed into the garment.

The Uses of Narrative

In satiric critical practice, a quality of narrative is always essential:
fundamentally, it describes the use of storytelling techniques to pass
comment or inquire through the actions of designing. Narratives
of use situate the product in a use context that allows the user to
understand and engage with the design and further its satiric forms.

Design and Culture

Figure 7
Embedded narrative. Martí Guixé, Lima Skip Furniture, 2004, Milan.
347

Photographer: Imagekontainer/Knölke.
 Matt Malpass

Relying on a subtle form of satire, associative design uses a

form of embedded narrative. The object offers a laconic criticism.
In this context, objects stand alone and are rarely contextualized by
an external medium, such as writing, supporting images, and film.
The commentary is embedded in the object, through the materials
used and the form the object takes. An embedded narrative is pos-
sible because of the subversion of familiar typology and collective
understanding.
Because of their provisional and unfamiliar characteristics, many
objects of speculative design require a detailed supporting nar-
rative to establish their use. This is established through scenario
building, where objects and technologies are situated in contexts of
use, and through technocratic visualization, for example Dunne and
Raby’s Foragers project (Figure 5), where narrative meanings are
constructed through specially made devices. But the unfamiliar can
also shape narrative by assigning unusual objects with descriptive
names, for example Flypaper Robotic Clock (Figure 8). Sometimes,
too, the use of film, photography, and performance, all external
media, supplement and contextualize these objects. In this respect,
the critique is established through a synthesis of objects and con-
textualizing material.
Critical design operates in a similar way, by also making use
of film, photography, and narrative naming, thus establishing an
extrinsic narrative to establish contexts of use. Here, however, a
topic is criticized because it falls short of some standard that the
designer desires that it should reach. This is expressed through
Design and Culture

Figure 8
Narrative ways of naming. Auger–Loizeau, Flypaper Robotic Clock: carnivorous
348

domestic entertainment robots, 2009.

 Between Wit and Reason

Figure 9
Narrative ways of naming. Björn Franke, Traces of an Imaginary Affair, 2006.

a critical narrative that ridicules or otherwise attacks conditions

needing reformation. In 2006 Björn Franke presented Traces of an
Imaginary Affair, a device that could imitate scratch marks made
on the back by an invented lover. Such an object might allow the
user to self-harm in order to feel self-worth. The design relies on
the understanding that self-harm is wrong. But it also challenges
such assumptions through juxtaposition, tension, and contradiction,
imagining how harming might actually instill value and worth. It is in
the difference between the proposed scenario and societal conven-
tion that critique is established and debate provoked.
Horatian satire – and therefore associative design – primarily op-
erates through narratives constructed through parody: familiar forms
are parodied and subverted. The critique can be embedded in the
Design and Culture

objects because of the user’s familiarity with the objects. Juvenalian

satire – and therefore speculative and critical design – works through
narratives constructed through allegory. The proposed objects are
unfamiliar and require contextualizing with supporting information.
The ease with which an object can be understood without the use
of external material that makes sense of its use context is described
349

as object rationality.
 Matt Malpass

Rationality and Ambiguity

Objects of associative design are rational; they are familiar and
understandable in their own right. But subverting familiar typologies
and making these objects strange creates an ambiguity of context.
Martino Gamper, for example, remakes seats using parts of ac-
cessible chairs. He constructs series of unique seats, but they also
remain functional. This form of critique is useful in spurring people to
approach a particular design with an open mind, and more generally,
to get them to question the assumptions they may hold about the
chair or other objects.
Speculative design is concerned with developing technology or
science and simply project possibilities. Often these innovations
are yet to be appropriated into everyday life. Because of this, its
objects are non-rational – they are not immediately understandable
or assimilated into the collective imaginary; the object and its use are
dependent on the fabrication of an external narrative to contextualize
it and make sense of the object and its context of use. While the
aim of constructed narratives is to make sense of the object, some
level of ambiguity is still necessary in order to provoke debate. So
the focus in speculative design is on creating uncertainties about
the information delivered through the design and its supporting nar-
rative, while at the same time positioning it as an object of product
design. The purpose of this may be merely to make the design work
seem mysterious or impressionistic, but more importantly it can also
compel people to join in the work of making sense of the design.
Auger’s Smell +: Dating and Genetic Compatibility Smell Blind Date,
for example, reminds us of current research on the role and potential
uses that might capitalize on recent discoveries of pheromones and
other chemical scents.
Critical design objects are also non-rational. Here the object is
placed in context through mechanisms of narrative storytelling and
allegory. Relational ambiguity is used, leading the user to consider
new beliefs and values, and ultimately question his or her own at-
titudes. The relational aspects of the design create conditions for
a personal projection of imagination and values onto a design. This
allows objects to become psychological mirrors for people, pushing
them to question their values and activities. Dunne and Raby’s Is
This Your Future? forces us to imagine tapping into the technical
possibilities of using human waste to power domestic consumer
products. But we must also pass such imagining through our own
belief systems.
Design and Culture

Toward a Taxonomy of Critical Practices in Design

Rationality, narrative, and satire interlink. These conditions afford
the capacity to fit associative, speculative, and critical design into a
taxonomic space. The more rational an object is, the more laconic
the critique: the critical move is established through Horatian satire.
350

The less rational an object is, the more there is a need for an extrinsic
 Between Wit and Reason

­ llegoric narrative: the critical move is established through Juvenalian

a
forms of satire. The relationships between the types of critical de-
sign practice may be plotted; the design methods used in critical
design practice and the methods of classification are summarized
in Table 1. These are structured into a taxonomic space illustrated
in Figure 10. The final element of the taxonomy outlined here is the
operating context, i.e., where projects are carried out. Four salient
operating contexts were identified from analysis and described as:
self-initiated studio projects – designer-initiated or commissioned

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Figure 10
Matt Malpass, 2012a. Taxonomy of critical practice; associative, speculative
and critical design structured into a taxonomic space using concepts of satire,
351

ambiguity, and object rationality.

 Matt Malpass

Table 1 Taxonomic matrix for critical design practice.

Practice Method: definition Type of Type of Object

satire: satiric ambiguity rationality
mechanism
Associative Cut-up: Horatian: Ambiguity of Rational
design context Familiar
When one or more objects are cut up or Parody
archetype
reassembled to exaggerate their properties Burlesque
and give new meaning Reductio ad
absurdum
Context transfer:
When one object is taken out of context and
placed into another

Speculative Hybridity: Horatian into Ambiguity of

design Juvenalian: information
One archetype integrated with another
archetype. This might take the form of two Narrative
objects but also practices. For example, Distortion
technology that exists in a laboratory context Exaggeration
is placed in a quotidian setting. Allegory
Anticlimax
Technocratic visualization:
Technocracy is a wide-ranging visual system
that is legitimized by specific reference to
scientific expertise. The science rationalizes
the proposition.

Critical Extrinsic narrative: Juvenalian: Relational Nonrational

design ambiguity
A narrative is established to situate the Allegory Unfamiliar
object. Questions are raised in the difference Violence archetype
between “reality” and the materiality proposed Obscenity
through the object and its narrative of use. Antithesis
Prolepsis
Note: For definitions and discussions on the type of satire, see Simpson (2003) and Connery and Combe (1996).

work; educational student projects – carried out in the pursuit of

a qualification; academic design research – work carried out in an
institutional context framed as research; para-academic – work
carried out in an institutional context, commissioned and funded
Design and Culture

by industrial partners. By considering whether a design project can

be categorized as associative, speculative or critical design, and in
identifying the context in which it was carried out, this model can
be used in a number of ways to map critical practices, allowing us
to view relationships between examples of practice and chart their
trajectories. The taxonomy therefore presents theoretical apparatus
352

to engage with the field of critical practice.

 Between Wit and Reason

Between Wit and Reason

This article has defined three specific types of critical design prac-
tice. This is grounded by an extensive contextual review of projects
and literature focusing on critical practices in design, and an analysis
of interviews with expert designers. The article has outlined methods
by which these practices operate. Common to the field is the use
of satire, rationality, and narrative to engage and offer critique. The
purpose of critical design concurrent with the function of satire is
constructive criticism, using wit as an instrument to affect critical
reflection. There is no satire without critique, and humor is a powerful
tool of engagement. But this critique is contingent on reading the
objects of critical practice as objects of design. These are, therefore,
always contextualized and rationalized with a narrative of use. The
critical move is established in the uncanny marriage of wit and rea-
son that resonates with the user, causing a dilemma of interpretation
and questions to be asked of the design and the contexts addressed
in the work.
Critical practices in design today are in flux. Moreover, if design,
as Dunne and Raby claim, “must establish an intellectual stance of its
own,” we must explore its critical turn more fully; above all, we must
perceive how design responds to disciplinary, scientific, or social
concerns. This article has examined how satire in design can relate
to the type of ambiguity used in each of the three types of critical
practice. By extension, it also helps us understand how rational an
object is, and how it contains a narrative. If design’s critical practices
are to remain between wit and reason, and not be “destined to lose
all intellectual credibility,” we must understand its language better.
By considering whether a project can be categorized as associative,
speculative or critical, we can, and must, move beyond accusations
of “design for design’s sake.”

Notes
1. These comments were specifically made in the thread Design
Practice 1 at the Design and Complexity Design Research Society
Conference held at the University of Montreal in 2010.
2. Examples of such theoretical focus are illustrated by the CoDesign
journal, disseminating and problematizing participatory and
cocreation in design, and DESIS, an international project focusing
on activity carried out in the field of design-led social innovation.
Arguably, such dictated theoretical platforms focusing on critical
design are yet to emerge.
Design and Culture

3. This was exemplified in Paulo Antonelli’s account of Catts and

Zurr’s work during the exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind,
which was astutely challenged by Cogdell (2009) in her Design
Issues review of the exhibition.
4. Dunne and Raby are London-based designers widely credited
for popularizing critical design through their design practice,
353

research and teaching activity at the Royal College of Art.

 Matt Malpass

5. The design device constitutes objects, contextualizing material,

but it closely considers the relational aspects of design. The
effects of the design, the discourse that emerges around the
design, the relationships the user has with the design, the publics
that are constructed – all compose the device. It is this network
of relations between objects, contextualizing material and users
that form the design that in its “totality” should be seen as the
object.
6. For a discussion on the use of the pseudo-documentary, see
Gaver and Dunne (1997). In this paper they outline the challenge
in designing ambiguous objects that might initiate debate; if an
object is too strange, an audience might not see it as design or
be able to imagine it in a use context.
7. Examples of literary satire illustrate this: Alexander Pope’s The
Rape of the Lock is often cited to illustrate the function of Horatian
satire, delicately chiding society in a sly but polished voice by
holding up a mirror to the follies and vanities of the upper class.
Pope’s focus is the British bourgeoisie. Pope does not actively
attack the self-important pomp of the British aristocracy, but
rather presents it in such a way that it gives the reader a new
perspective from which to easily view the actions in the story
as foolish and ridiculous. Pope nonetheless is able to effectively
illuminate the moral degradation of society to the public through
parody. For further discussion on satire and satiric techniques,
see Simpson (2003) and Connery and Combe (1996).
8. An example often cited to illustrate the operation of Juvenelian
satire is Jonathan Swift’s fable A Modest Proposal. Swift presents
a solution to overpopulation and food shortage in eighteenth-
century Ireland. His proposal to solve both these problems is
that society should eat children. The story draws attention to
the issues at play through a logical solution infused with tones of
obscenity and violence. The scandalous solution evokes outrage
in the reader. Analogies can be drawn between the violence in
this proposition and Dunne and Raby’s invasive reengineering of
human physiology and the ethical considerations that this propo-
sition evokes. For further discussion, see Simpson (2003) and
Connery and Combe (1996).

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